Despite growing up in New York, Rochester is a place I’ve
never been to before . And because it’s situated off the main highway through
western New York, The New York State Thruway, I haven’t even passed through it.
I can’t say there’s anything in the city that’s a major draw, but as I’ve been
checking off art museums around the country as I tour around Rochester
interested me because of its Memorial Art Gallery.

Rochester is New York State’s third largest city and
probably the most prosperous one in Upstate New York with a more white-collar
employment base and more modern twentieth century industries compared to more
blue-collar Buffalo which declined faster as its industrial base evaporated.
But Rochester has hard times of its own. The three big companies for which are
based in Rochester (Eastman Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch and Lomb) are small
fractions of what they were about half a century ago, and the major employer in
the region is now the University of Rochester rather than any big corporation.
Maybe I just hit the better parts of town on my drives into and around the
city, but true to its reputation the Rochester area appeared mostly well-kept
and prosperous . I didn’t spend much time in the downtown, though, and on the
while it looked a little disappointing with plenty of ugly 1960s style urban
renewal and few newer skyscrapers. Like everywhere in America, though, urban
living is back in vogue and there seems to be a fair amount of apartment
construction around the downtown.

One of Rochester’s main attractions is High Falls, the
waterfall just downriver from downtown where the Genesee River plunges down
over the Niagara Escarpment. There aren’t many places with a major waterfall
just a few blocks from the city center. The gorge below the falls is panned by
a former railroad bridge that’s now a pedestrians-only park with great views
towards the falls and downtown. The west side of the bridge now constitutes an
entertainment district, but the treat that awaits a walk across the bridge is
the Genesee Brewery and its brewpub on the east side of the gorge. Genesee has
been around since 1880 so isn’t part of the recent microbrewery fad. It is
rather one of the few significant old-time breweries that survives without
having been taken over by one of America’s big three .

Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery is located on the
University of Rochester campus but is a civic art museum rather than a
university collection. The collection is quite impressive for a city of
Rochester’s size and is weighted heavily toward American art, Modern art, and
European art from the mid-1900s onwards. There are a few galleries with older
paintings and sculptures but relatively few big name artists until you get at
least to the Dutch “Golden Age”. This seems sort of fitting for a relatively
modern city like Rochester.

Rochester’s other big attraction is just a few blocks away
at the George Eastman House and Museum. Eastman was, of course, the founder of
the Eastman Kodak Company and pioneer in photographic equipment and film. It is
said that at one point in time Eastman was the sixth richest man in America,
and he naturally built himself a house to show off his success, a mansion that
would fit right in in a capital of the gilded age like Newport . One thing I
didn’t know about Eastman was that he never married and was what they used to
call a “confirmed bachelor”, something for which we have a different name for
nowadays. That’s more rumor than anything for which there’s
firm evidence. Besides the house and surrounding gardens, a significant museum
of photography and photographic equipment has been added on as an extension to
the house, one of the earliest such photography museums in the U.S. and world.

It’s not too often that I attend live music performances and
don’t usually even give it much thought when I’m traveling unless I’m somewhere
like Mexico or Eastern Europe where I know the price will be reasonable. I
contacted an e-pen pal of mine named Steven Laifer who lives in Rochester and
plays the French Horn for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra for pointers for
things to see and do in western New York. Coincidentally, my Saturday visit
coincided with the Philharmonic’s last performance of the season. He asked me
if I’d like to attend. “Ummmm, errrr, well, I’d love to, but I didn’t come
prepared clothingwise. The dressiest I can get is a polo shirt, hiking pants
with zip-off legs, and athletic shoes.” Steve said Rochester is a casual kind
of town and the outfit I described would pass. The evening’s performance was a
mix of Ravel, Rachmaninoff, and Borodin, three composers with whom I’m not too
familiar. I greatly enjoyed the experience, something very different from what
I usually do on my road trips across America. Thanks, Steve!